Marking Essays

In A new collection of his own commentaries, Robert Manne reminds us why history’s chroniclers are essential to our understanding of events, people and phenomena. Talking about writer and concentration camp survivor Primo Levi, Manne writes that “the changing of the landscape and the passing of the seasons at Auschwitz are both recollected with fidelity but pregnant with the seed of evil. It was as if from the time of his entrance through the gates of Monowitz-Buna Primo Levi was aware that he had been given the duty of recording for future generations one of the stories that needed to find a place in the collective memory of humankind.’’

Manne’s world in 21st-century Melbourne may be less menacing than Levi’s, but his role as an observer of our own Australian landscape is critical. If we are to make sense of our political and social environments, if we wish to be part of our community’s debates, then we need commentators such as Manne. His views, whether you like them or not, will prompt you to form your own. More importantly, a lot of what he writes involves primary evidence – the stories of the stolen generations, Julian Assange’s early life in Australia and the like.

And it is this primary evidence, usually recalled with an academic’s detachment and scholarly rigour, that makes Manne’s essays important documents of record.

Making Trouble: Essays Against The New Australian Complacency brings together a collection of Manne’s recent public work. The pieces go back to John Howard’s final term as prime minister; the author is forthcoming about who he sees as the chief catalyst for this “new complacency’’. “The greatest enemy of Australian self-criticism and re-invention was the man elected prime minister in 1996,’’ Manne writes in his introduction. You know the sparks are about to fly.

All sides of politics – the Greens included – are put under Manne’s microscope. The media, also, is scrutinised as an agent for dumbing down the debate. Manne’s particular concerns include the role of Rupert Murdoch, and the state of the ABC. He adds that “the impoverishment of the ABC is not a natural state of affairs. With an additional $100 million a year targeted at the more creative aspects of the ABC’s mission, that dimension of the nation which one might call its spirit or its soul would be enormously enriched.”

The collection is, in its author’s words, a “critique of Australian populist conservatism’’. It’s a melting pot of big ideas and firm opinions, ranging from subjects such as the asylum seeker debate, climate change, the 2020 summit, Gallipoli, Noel Pearson, WikiLeaks and the courage of Julian Assange, the rise and fall of Kevin Rudd, and Tony Abbott’s future. Manne’s July 2009 article on the Black Saturday fires, titled Black Saturday: Why We Weren’t Warned? is one of the most important articles to be written about that event, and reason alone to buy the book. I also put in that category of “must read” his four eloquent and moving essays about the Holocaust. They are stand-alone works of art.